mdimportserver crashed or StuffIt Spotlight importer: Could not open the archive. Error: -XX or 17XXX

[Hex Star]

I noticed that after downloading some copies of vintage mac software
archives I was getting constant errors like this in the Console log:

Mar 19 17:04:36 macminis-computer crashdump[285]: mdimportserver crashed
Mar 19 17:04:36 macminis-computer crashdump[285]: crash report written to:
/Users/hexstar/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mdimportserver.crash.log
Mar 19 17:04:47 macminis-computer crashdump[287]: mdimportserver crashed
Mar 19 17:04:47 macminis-computer crashdump[287]: crash report written to:
/Users/hexstar/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mdimportserver.crash.log
Mar 19 17:04:59 macminis-computer crashdump[291]: mdimportserver crashed
Mar 19 17:04:59 macminis-computer crashdump[291]: crash report written to:
/Users/hexstar/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mdimportserver.crash.log
Mar 19 17:05:11 macminis-computer crashdump[294]: mdimportserver crashed
Mar 19 17:05:11 macminis-computer crashdump[294]: crash report written to:
/Users/hexstar/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mdimportserver.crash.log
Mar 19 17:05:26 macminis-computer mdimportserver[296]: StuffIt Spotlight
importer: Could not open the archive. Error: -39
Mar 19 17:05:26 macminis-computer mdimportserver[296]: StuffIt Spotlight
importer: Could not open the archive. Error: -39
Mar 19 17:07:43 macminis-computer mdimportserver[296]: StuffIt Spotlight
importer: Could not get archive ref from FSObjectRef. Error: 17514
Mar 19 17:07:57 macminis-computer mdimportserver[296]: StuffIt Spotlight
importer: Could not open the archive. Error: 17508
Mar 19 17:09:09 macminis-computer mdimportserver[306]: StuffIt Spotlight
importer: Could not get archive ref from FSObjectRef. Error: 17514
Mar 19 17:10:28 macminis-computer mdimportserver[313]: StuffIt Spotlight
importer: Could not get archive ref from FSObjectRef. Error: 17514
Mar 19 17:13:02 macminis-computer mdimportserver[331]: StuffIt Spotlight
importer: Could not open the archive. Error: 17508

It was then apparent that something with Stuffit was amiss (it obviously
didn't like some of the old stuffit archives in the archives) but what?

Since these errors were causing the spotlight server to error out and make
lots of respawns I had to hurry and find a solution. After some googling I
found out that Stuffit Deluxe 11 (which is what I have) and apparently 10 as
well integrates itself with Spotlight so that when you use spotlight you can
search for contents of archives as well...which is neat until something like
this happens ;)

So I googled and googled and googled but didn't really come up with much of
anything that was of any help with the location of the stuffit spotlight
plugin except that the plugin might be in one of the Spotlight folders in
the one of the Library folders, nope!

then I googled a how to on making spotlight plugins and finally found what I
was looking for, oddly enough Spotlight plguins can be stored in
contents/Library/Spotlight/ in application bundles (.app application files)

And indeed that was where the plugin was stored, upon removing it and
rebooting spotlight was able to index fine without crashing...yay! :D

Here's how I did it:

1) Open a Finder window

2) Goto Applications>Stuffit 11 (replace 11 with 10 if you have 10)

3) Right click Stuffit Archive Manager and click Show Package Contents

4) A new window should pop up that says Contents in it

5) Double click through the folders and go to Contents>Library>Spotlight

6) There you should see StuffIt.mdimporter

7) Drag it out somewhere, to the Trash or some folder you made somewhere on
your HD

8) Reboot

9) Now view the console log again, you should no longer see error messages
about mdimportserver crashing :D

I posted this to this forum because when  I googled there was nothing about
resolving this issue and so I felt that since I had so much trouble fixing
this issue that it's only fair to let others know how it's fixed so that
they don't have to go through the same troubles I did to resolve this issue

happy spotlighting! :)
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